Politico does piece on how some Democrats are NOT in a hurry to have the government bring back Obama admin fair housing policy paperwork rules..
The Obama policy was to make it easier for local governments to get housing moneys from the government for lower class Americans …
The application for federal funding for the The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule has been deemed so hard that local governments just gave up on the program and it’s funding availability …
Trump dropped the program all together ….
Biden has said he’ll bring it back…
Biden’s transition website lists racial equity as one of four key issues he will focus on immediately — alongside the raging pandemic, economic collapse and climate change. And housing advocates who have pressed their case with Biden’s HUD landing team say they’re confident the incoming administration believes reinstating the 2015 rule is an urgent priority. The Biden transition team didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The confusion over the rule — and what reinstituting it will look like — comes as the Black homeownership rate already lags behind that of white people by about 30 points. Lingering effects from the economic crisis could drive it still wider, exacerbating longstanding inequities caused by decades of government-led segregation.
“Blacks and Latinos are more likely to live in health deserts with fewer health care facilities, dentists, primary care physicians,” said Lisa Rice, president and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance. The 2015 rule “was designed to fix all of these structural issues. And instead of enforcing AFFH, Trump has eviscerated it.”
The data and assessment tools folded into the original Obama rule may need to be “updated,” she said, but the regulation itself is critical to addressing systemic racism.
“It was clear from Day One that the Trump administration did not understand fair housing,…